


turn them inside out

by insunshine



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Boston Bruins, Future Fic, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 08:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10941078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/pseuds/insunshine
Summary: Greg doesn't know what he's doing when he gets on the plane.





	turn them inside out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookhousegirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhousegirl/gifts).



> Dear BookhouseGirl, this wasn't a pairing I had ever written before, but I had so much fun with them! Thanks for such a great prompt.
> 
> Warning for mention of actual spouses.

Greg doesn't know what he's doing when he gets on the plane. He's been shuffling around from place to place for so long that it feels like second nature. By the time he snaps out of it, they're flying somewhere over Delaware.

Boston can still be cold in March, but he didn't pack a jacket or a scarf. He didn’t pack much of anything, really. He walked out of the hotel with divorce papers in one hand and the clothes on his back. He hadn't even bothered talking to anyone at the airport in Toronto, just bought his ticket through the mobile app on his phone and waited at the gate. 

Logan is freezing when they disembark, but the sting helps keep him alert. It's all a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, keeping his breathing regulated, his hands calm. When he was playing, he'd meditated regularly, and even though he's mostly fallen out of practice, it's not at all hard to remember.

Greg stopped believing in god around the same time he stopped being a useful asset on the ice, but there's actually a cab waiting at the taxi stand, and he’d fall on his knees and pray if the Ice Melt on the pavement wouldn't ruin the material of his suit.

“Where to,” the cabbie says as he slides inside, already flicking the meter on. 

He's not stupid, despite the concussion. Despite the moniker of ex-pro athlete and sort of current model, he's not dumb. That doesn't explain why he didn't think to plan for this, why he didn't think to call ahead and get Dan’s new address.

“Kid,” the cabbie says, accent thick and colored with impatience. It's been years since Greg’s been in this city, days and days stretched and stacked on top of each other. He's missed it. He's missed every part of it, in ways he's never known how to articulate.

“Can you,” Greg says, his voice sticky with disuse. It's not like he's had a ton to be chatty about lately. “Can you just take me to the Garden, please? The TD Garden?”

“Took you fucking long enough,” the driver says. Greg doesn’t bother engaging, looking out the window, instead. Boston looks familiar, even though the landscape and the skyline have changed a lot over the last ten years. 

He pulls out his phone, takes one more fortifying breath and sends, _Are you at work?_

They're stuck waiting at the toll. He kills some time scrolling through his locked twitter, and the Facebook feed he only looks at sometimes. Something makes him laugh, something he thinks about sending Dan randomly, and then — and then Greg’s heart is in his throat, because those three little dots mean that Dan’s typing, or at least he's thinking about it.

 _Yup!_ comes the reply, as blunt and cheerful as Dan is himself. _The better question is, where are you?_

Greg flinches. He can feel the the tremor, the shudder, feel it moving through him like wildfire. 

_What?_ he sends, his brain scrolling through potential leaks, someone who could have spilled the news before he did, about his whereabouts, or…

 _You said you were off this week!_ Dan sends back. The _duh_ is not written, but heavily implied. 

Greg can feel relief and exhaustion creeping into his bones like the cold on a windy day. It's a delicate thing, this peace in his chest. It won't last, can't, and he flinches again as he shifts in his seat and hears the crinkle of pages in his pocket.

“I'm divorced,” he says out loud, to test the weight of it.

“Good for you,” says his driver, and it seems mean, but he sounds less grouchy than he had before. “Me, I'm still on number two, but it's a good one. Thirty years we got together.”

“That's a long time,” Greg says, just to say something. He thinks about his wedding day, the way the light had glinted off Katie’s hair, how she'd smiled at him and looked like forever, even though he knew it would only last them as long as he could pretend.

It wasn't long enough; it wasn't fair enough. He didn't apologize enough. He didn't beg enough. He's been a coward off the ice for years, it's just that people only recently started noticing.

“You?” The driver asks. If Greg squints through the smudged plexiglas, he can sort of see a name written on the medallion hanging from the mirror. He's not wearing his glasses, or this would be much easier.

“Uh, ten years, give or take? We've been separated since October, but we only signed today. This morning.” 

“So you got on a plane,” says Matt or Mike. From what Greg can see, he doesn't particularly look like either, but then again, he's never felt like a Gregory. Soupy fit better, and hardly anybody calls him that now.

“So I got on a plane,” Greg agrees, and then looks down at his phone, where Dan has written _So??? Where are the Soup Cans off to this time?_

It would be so easy to lie. He's made a mistake. What he needs to do is stop and think. Make the right decision for once, before he starts dragging innocent bystanders into the mix.

 _Are you really gonna make me guess???_ Dan asks, and Greg squeezes his eyes shut, because he loves him. He's always loved him, and he's so stupid. 

There has never been a worse time for this, but instead of saying that, he sends, _Here. In Boston. I'm actually heading to you right now._

+

He should have kept his mouth shut. About a lot of things, probably, but especially about this, because Dan is waiting for him outside the building, hands stuffed in the pockets of his fleece. He's wearing a hat and a scarf in subtle black and gold, and he looks so good, so familiar that Greg’s palms itch.

“What the fuck,” Dan says, laughing as Greg gets out of the car, making sure to grab his phone and his wallet, and to tip well, because Max had been quiet when he'd needed quiet, and talkative when he hadn't. 

Dan tugs him close, a tight squeeze that feels somehow less intimate, even though they're in less bulky clothing than they had been the last time they'd been so close. 

“Where's Kate?” Dan asks, turning his head toward the departing cab like maybe Greg had forgotten her inside. It's funny enough that he wants to laugh, but Greg can't get himself to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. 

“She, uh,” Greg says stupidly, staring dazedly at Dan’s face, and how he looks so overwhelmingly familiar and also startlingly different, all at once. “She didn't come, Danny.” 

He stops talking, like maybe Dan will just intuit everything, and they won't actually need to have this conversation in the slushy, traffic-laden mess of Causeway St.

“I can't read your mind when we're off the ice,” Dan says, leaning close enough to flick him on the temple before turning to head inside. “You want a coffee, man? You look like you could use one.”

He starts walking, so Greg follows him, trying not to stare at the way his jacket falls against his waist. He's still trim, even though he hasn't played in years.

“Yes, to coffee,” Greg says belatedly, following Dan inside the labyrinth of hallways that comprise the guts of the building. “Please.”

Dan laughs again and says, “Still so polite, huh? I should've guessed. You London boys never change.”

Greg laughs, which seems to surprise them both, and Dan grins at him again, peeking over his shoulder and looking so pleased, happy, even, all because of him. 

It's a heady feeling. Greg wants to grab him by the back of the neck and press his face there, just breathing in. Wants to kiss him until they're both gasping for breath, wants to, to —

“...and this is me,” Dan’s saying, gesturing toward a darkened office with a window, and a steaming mug of something next to the mouse pad. _Operations_ is stenciled in thick black paint on the frosted glass of the door. 

Greg wants to touch it, trace over the letters with his fingertips, just because Dan may have. He doesn't. He restrains himself. At least he still has some self control in there, somewhere.

“So,” Dan says, pouring coffee from the plugged in carafe into a thick ceramic mug and handing it over. He gestures like Greg should sit, and when he does, their conversation feels way more formal than he likes. “What's going on, Gregory?” 

His eyes are clear, direct, and so bright that Greg feels like he's drowning when he looks in them. It was never like this before, he's pretty sure. At least back then he had Katie as a distraction. He'd been so sure he was in love with her. It's strange to be on the other side of that.

“What do you mean?” Greg asks, stalling for time.

Dan knows it, and he proves it by rolling his eyes and leaning back in his seat. 

Of course he does. That's why Greg’s here, honestly. They know each other, they used to know everything about each other. Even though proximity hasn't been kind, even though it's been a year or more since they've been in the same place for longer than a couple of hours, Dan knows him. 

“We got divorced,” Greg says, and it comes out easier than it had in the cab. “I'm divorced,” he repeats, and it sounds weird, it will probably always sound weird, but it also sounds right. Finally.

Dan blinks. When his face smooths out again, he says, “But. Why didn’t you tell me things were that bad? I talked to you last month, and you said you guys were getting along better. You said that everything was fine!”

“I lied,” Greg says, shrugging as he pulls the crumpled pieces of paper from his pocket. His signature is cramped tightly above Katie’s looped scrawl. She'd cried, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, and he'd cried too, even though it hadn’t felt fair.

“What the fuck,” Dan says, and in all the possibilities Greg had spun, in every eventuality he'd envisioned, he never thought that Dan might be this upset. 

“Danny,” Greg tries, and when Dan meets his eyes again, he doesn't look mad anymore, thank fuck. “Separation usually leads to divorce. The lawyer made some joke about it this morning. It’s very common. Only 25% of separations are temporary.” He clears his throat, which is too tight all of the sudden, and then has nothing else to say.

“Yeah,” Dan says, “but you must have decided sometime. Why didn't you tell me? I would’ve. Fuck, I’ve been there, man. I could’ve helped. I could’ve done something better than trying to convince you it might still work out.” 

He gets to his feet, coming over to Greg’s side of the desk. Dan’s knee brushes his thigh as he settles, and it takes every ounce of willpower Greg has to keep from reaching out and touching him. At least he hadn't imagined the sweet, anticipatory adrenaline rush he always got when the two of them were plastered together. Greg breathes and tries to center himself.

“Did something else happen?” Dan asks, and his voice is so gentle that Greg wants to let his eyes slip closed, wants to lean hard into his warmth. “Obviously something happened, back in the fall, you said you guys were fighting more often, but. Are you hurt? Did she… I don't know.” He scrunches up his face, and it's so charming, Greg wants to touch him all over again.

Greg basically always wants to touch him. 

He makes himself laugh, and says, “We can't all have magical divorces like you, Paille, okay? It's not on her. I did this. I wasn't good enough, and by the time I realized it, I didn't want to be good enough, and by the time she realized she deserved better, we were fighting too much to do anything different.” 

It's the dumbed down version of the truth. He'd been cold, not on purpose, not entirely, and Katie had deserved better. She hadn't lashed out until the end, and by then, he’d deserved it all anyway.

Dan bites his lip, an unthinking, obvious movement, and Greg wants to kiss him so badly his hands start shaking. They're sitting too close for him to be able to resist temptation easily, but then again, whole continents of separation hadn't been enough to dull the impulse.

“I'm sorry,” Dan says, reaching out and clasping his shoulder briefly. “I'm glad you came to me. You can stay as long as you want, obviously. I have way more space than I need.”

He drops his hand away, but Greg can feel the heat of it lingering. 

“Thanks,” Greg says. “I should've called and gotten a room, but I didn't even think about it before I got on the plane.”

“Why?” Dan says, grinning at him. “So you could pretend to go stay somewhere else? Come on.” He looks around the room suddenly, and adds, “Gregory, where's your stuff?”

“Uh,” Greg says, stalling for time.

“Did you walk straight out of your lawyer's office and right onto a plane?”

Greg shrugs. It's not inaccurate. “It seemed like the thing to do,” he says.

It makes Dan laugh, which is nice. The curve of his neck is gorgeous. Greg presses his fingers hard against his thighs to keep from reaching out.

“So we’re going to go shopping, too? Is that what you're telling me?” 

He laughs again, and Greg laughs with him, tries not to get carried away, even though he can feel himself sliding into the perfection of this feeling, and how much he's missed it.

“You know you love it,” Greg teases, and Dan widens his eyes, pointing to himself with mock surprise.

“Do I? Are you sure it's me you're remembering, punk? It's been a long time.”

“Yeah,” Greg agrees, speaking quickly. “Of course I'm sure. No one else complains as cute as you do.”

Dan laughs again, one sharp bark before he excuses himself for a second, leaning back just far enough to grab his detached keyboard and starting to type.

“I'm taking the rest of the afternoon off. I have a ton more vacation time than I used to. I could probably just take the week, right? It's not like anybody cares about us low level schmucks.” 

From what Dan’s told him, he's not at all low level, and he actually likes his job. It's a real second career for him the way modeling has never been for Greg, maybe especially because he hasn't ever quite found his niche.

“Hey, man, you won't catch me complaining,” Greg says, trying not to think of long days in Dan’s apartment, just the two of them, skin pressed against skin, mouths sharing breath.

“Besides,” Dan continues, switching off his machine and getting to his feet. “I know you. You’re way more likely to tell me who she is if we’re alone, and I promise to respect your privacy after.” 

“She?” Greg asks, blushing. He can't stop the heat that spreads across his face, and he wants to pretend he's confused, but he's not. He's always been able to read Dan, even when he didn't want to. “There is no she,” he says, looking at a spot above Dan’s head so he doesn't have to make eye contact. 

“C’mon,” Dan says, shoving his arm. He's not mean, and it doesn't hurt, but Greg catches himself flinching anyway. “Soup, you can tell me anything, and I know the only way you would have left your wife is if there was someone else. No judgment, man. It happens to the best of us.”

“There is no her,” Greg argues. “Swear to god.” 

Dan frowns, worrying his bottom lip again. “I don't get it, then. You guys were so happy. Go-the-distance happy. I was at your wedding. The way you looked at her... I've never seen anything like it.”

Greg digs his fingers against his thighs again, trying not to lose the tenuous grip he has on his temper. He remembers his wedding. He remembers trying so hard to focus on Katie, on how beautiful she was, how funny and kind, how perfect they could've been together if he could just get Dan out of his head for long enough. 

He’s heard it all before; from his parents, from Katie’s sisters and their friends. They were such a great couple. They were so happy! What happened? The worst part about the divorce is that it had been preventable, but he’s a coward off the ice, he always has been, and so it wasn’t. He’s not an honorable guy. He’d loved her. He loves her, but they should have never gotten married. 

“Yeah, well,” he says, nasty without meaning to be. “Maybe you haven't been looking hard enough.”

Dan looks stricken, and the ugly, hidden part of Greg’s brain thinks _good_ , before he remembers who and where and how they are. He can't be mad at Dan for something he didn't know about and couldn't prevent.

“What does that mean?” Dan asks.

Greg’s on his feet before he can stop himself, even though his brain is screaming at him to sit back down. He touches Dan’s forearm, his neck, his cheek. He swallows hard, leaning their foreheads together, amazed that Dan’s letting him. 

“There's nobody else, Danny,” he says, heart in his throat. “There's just you. It's always been you.”

He leans in, nose brushing Dan’s in a long, electric snap. Their mouths brush, awkward at first, and then more insistent. Greg’s whole body feels like it’s rubbing against sandpaper. 

He leans back eventually, to breathe, and he's not expecting Dan to hit him, would have never seen it coming, but that's what happens. Greg opens his eyes and he's hunched over with his arms wrapped across his belly, can taste blood in his mouth.

“You can't just do that,” Dan says, breathing hard, like he's the one who's been suckerpunched. “You can't just.”

He sounds wrecked. Greg will apologize as soon as he gets his breath back, but Dan takes away that option; turning and walking out of the office, and slamming the door behind him. 

He waits a while. Greg’s heart is thudding discordantly against his chest, too hard and too fast. He hasn’t gotten into a physical altercation since he retired, and maybe not for almost a full season before that. It’s not his style. It’s not Dan’s either, though. By now, Greg can differentiate between someone’s fight or flight instinct and an actual intent to hurt. 

There's a bench outside of Dan’s office, long and low, probably leftover from when the space was more player oriented. Greg’s not expecting to find him slumped there, but he is, hunched with his forearms pressed to his knees and his head down. Greg wants to touch him, but he tamps down the impulse. 

“Danny, I'm sorry,” he says, which is true, even if he's not quite sure what he's apologizing for. He's wished to not feel this way hundreds of times over the last ten years, but he can't apologize for something that's been a part of him for this long.

Dan looks up at him, expression stormy. “You have nothing to apologize for. I'm the one. I shouldn't have. I've never hit someone like that. Not off the ice.”

It's true. Dan was a damn fine hockey player. He could skate laps around the very best, and he wasn't shy about showing it off. When he was on, when they clicked, it was beautiful. Greg squeezes his eyes shut, missing it fiercely, wishing he were ten years younger, fifteen years younger, when everything hurt less, and he hadn't let so many people down.

“Let's just forget it,” he says, plopping down next to him and trying to look more casual than he feels.

Dan says, “You know I can't do that.” 

He looks so sad about it, like he's genuinely heartbroken, and that breaks Greg’s heart, too, the part of it that's been holding onto this for so long. 

“I got divorced today,” he says.

It still feels weird, like it happened to someone else with his name and his face, but maybe the more he says it, the more real it will feel. 

“It wasn't. Dan, it wasn't about you. Or because of you. Katie was always too good for me, and she just finally figured it out.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “You can't believe that, and I don't either, Soup. I'm sorry I don't — it sucks that you came all the way out here, and you wanted me, and I don't…” he lets himself trail off, a kindness, but it's not like Greg can't put the pieces of the puzzle together. 

“I've been ignoring it for this long,” he says. “You don't have to apologize, Danny. You didn't know." 

That Greg hadn't wanted him to know is probably an important thing to point out, but he doesn't. That part is private. 

They stare at each other a while, at least until Dan lets out a frustrated noise, dropping his head to his hands again. It would be funny, if Greg weren't just barely holding himself together. 

“If I ask you to stay with me, it'll be awkward, and if I don't, it'll be fucked anyway. I hate that, Soup. You're my best friend.”

Greg tries to smile, but he can't quite make his mouth work. “Sorry I wrecked it,” he tries, that ugly thing getting caught in his throat again. He squeezes shut his eyes, and that seems to stave off the sting of hot tears he can feel catching in his throat.

Dan stands. Greg can't see him, but he can sense the movement. He still flinches when Dan touches him, hands on either of his arms. He presses their foreheads together, and it takes all of Greg’s self control not to collapse against him and cry.

“You didn't wreck anything,” Dan says, stepping back after fuck-knows how long. “You're great. Wanna come back to my house and watch a movie? The new apartment isn’t as grandiose as the last one, but there’s cold beer and a great Thai place that delivers right around the corner.” 

“Sounds good to me,” Greg agrees. 

+

Dan’s place _is_ nice, though he wasn’t being modest when he said it was a step down from the second floor brownstone he and Dana had shared on Boylston. The apartment on Appleton is a little more residential, a little less ostentatious, although when Dan mentions casually that he owns instead of rents, Greg can understand why.

“It’s nice,” he says, slumping into the comfy-looking oversized couch in the den. Everything is done in dark wood and brown leather. It looks like one of the gentlemen’s clubs Greg’s dad took him to when he was a kid, minus the smoke, and the scantily clad women. 

“I like it,” Dan agrees with a tired smile, slumping down next to him. 

He must push a button somewhere, because after a few seconds, the wall splits in two, and a flat screen pops out. It’s not all that fancy, but Dan keeps peeking at him to see if he’s impressed, and Greg can’t help laughing, because it’s cute. 

“Very impressive,” he says, feeling himself relax the longer they sit like this, smushed together and grinning at each other. 

“What do you want to watch?” Dan asks, breaking the spell, even though he’s still smiling. 

“Something with lots of explosions. I might be about to fall asleep,” Greg says, the exhaustion of the day starting to get to him if the sparks of white in the corners of his eyes are anything to go by. “Hey, do you have anything I can change into? Sorry, I didn’t exactly pack. You know.” 

“I know,” Dan agrees, pushing up to his feet, and heading toward the hallway to what Greg presumes is his bedroom. “I have sweatpants, I have t-shirts, I have a phone charger, and one of those fancy new-fangled toothpaste/mouthwash dispensers. You could probably fit into an old pair of my boxers, too, but I don’t know if…” he pauses, cheeks getting progressively pinker and pinker.

“It’s fine,” Greg says. “I saw a department store downtown earlier. I’ll swing by there in the morning.”

Dan nods at him, disappearing into his room, and coming back with a soft pair of sweats, an even older, softer shirt, and an unopened toothbrush. 

“Are you sure you want to watch something right now? You could nap. I have some emails I should get to anyway.” Greg wants to apologize again, about surprising Dan like this, about barging into his life and unsettling it, but when he tries, Dan holds up his hands like a white flag of surrender. “Or we could watch a movie with lots of explosions. That’s what the doctor ordered, right?” 

“Right,” Greg agrees, changing in the bathroom and falling asleep less than five minutes into _Die Hard_. 

It’s dark when he opens his eyes. The curtains aren’t drawn, and if he cranes his head up high enough, he can make out the patterns of traffic on the street below. 

“Oh,” Dan says from the doorway, a yoghurt-covered spoon lifted halfway to his mouth. “You’re awake.”

Greg holds his hand up in an awkward hello and immediately feels like an idiot, even though Dan just smiles and comes back to sit next to him on the couch. 

“I’m awake,” Greg agrees. “This couch is comfortable. How long was I out for?”

“You slept through two and a half _Die Hards_ ,” Dan says, leaning his arm against the length of the couch. “I know 1 and 3 are supposedly the best ones, but there’s something about the third one that just gets on my nerves.” 

“Agreed,” Greg says. It’s not a surprise, because they’ve talked about it before, even though it was years ago, and he’d half-forgotten. 

Dan looks a little surprised though, but mostly he just smiles, and Greg smiles back at him, because even if it is stupid, it’s easy, and there’s not a lot that’s been easy lately. 

“So you’re modeling now, huh?” Dan asks, smirking around another bite of his yoghurt. 

Greg flicks his thigh, and lets himself laugh, because at the end of the day, the trajectory of his life is ridiculous, but modeling has paid for a lot.

“Hey,” Greg says, laughing again. “Modeling paid for my divorce, man. Don’t knock it.” 

Dan’s flinch is a full body thing. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” he says.

“I’m. Me too, I guess. I still love her. I’ll always love her, but at least this way she can figure something else out.”

Dan nods, because he gets it. “It’s the same for me, and D,” he says, his voice even quieter than before. “It sucks when it’s — not being enough. It sucks. Wanting different things when you’re supposed to be together forever.” 

“There’s no ‘supposed to’, Danny,” Greg says, flicking Dan’s thigh again. “I’m so fucking sorry it didn’t work out with Dana. I really am. You guys were great together.” 

“How can you say that?” Dan asks. He doesn’t sound angry, he sounds like he’s being hollowed out, and Greg’s heart aches for him in a way he didn’t realize he could even feel. “You’re supposed to be in love with me, right? How can you possibly be in love with me and also wish I were still married to my — to Dana?”

There is no easy answer, which is what Greg says, eventually. “D’you really think I want you, if having you means having you miserable? I would be so much happier if you were happy, Danny. You know that. You have to know that.”

Dan nods slowly, meeting Greg’s eyes again and gnawing on his bottom lip. “I do,” he says.

The energy in the room is charged; this heavy, feral thing that Greg can feel clawing at them both. 

“I’m sorry I hit you,” Dan whispers. It’s just the two of them in this room, but he’s nearly silent, anyway. Greg leans closer just to hear. “I didn’t. I just wasn’t expecting it.” 

“I was practically caressing your face,” Greg laughs, trying to lighten the mood. “But, okay. I get it. I’m not. Fuck, Danny, I deserved it. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. I’ve been through worse in that building.” 

Dan winces like he’s imagining the injuries, and Greg follows him into the memory. It’s not hard to remember the crunch of bone on ice, or the whip of cold that only hit him that hard in the rink. 

“Can we just.” Dan bursts the words out at double time. “Can we have a do-over?” 

Greg blinks. “What?”

“A do-over,” Dan says, shrugging a little sheepishly. “Tell me what happened today.” 

There is a traitorous flicker of hope straining Greg’s belly. He tries to ignore it, even though that impulse isn’t doing him much good.

“I got divorced,” Greg says, doing his best to keep his hands to himself. 

Dan’s biting his bottom lip, but maintaining eye-contact as he says, “Why did you get divorced, Soup?”

“I’m, unfortunately, in love with somebody else. I have been for a long time,” Greg says. 

Dan moves closer, and for all the burgeoning hope in his belly, Greg has no idea what to expect.

“Who is it?” Dan asks. 

It’s so, so quiet in the apartment. Even the sounds of traffic can’t burst the bubble they’re in. Greg meets Dan’s eyes, swallows, and licks his lips. He watches Dan tracking the motion and feels his mouth going dry. 

“Soup,” Dan says. He’s not moving closer, but it feels like he could be. “The person you’re in love with. Who is it?”

Greg squeezes his eyes shut, but only for a second. “This isn’t a game, Danny. It’s been too long, and I'm too old.”

“Fuck, that’s not what I wanted to do,” Dan says. “Fuck. Listen, I told you I would be bad at this shit, man. You’re making my head spin.”

Greg touches his arm, and when Dan doesn’t pull away, tangles their fingers together. They’ve never held hands before, and the simple touch of skin against skin makes him dizzy.

“You gotta tell me why you’re asking,” Greg says. “You know who, Danny.”

Dan’s eyes slip closed, and he tightens his grip on Greg’s fingers. “I can’t pretend that it was ever like that for me,” he says. “I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that anyone would — my own wife didn’t stick around, and she made promises in front of god, and everybody. I don’t blame her. She had to do what was right for her, but I. You’ve gotta understand, it’s a lot.”

“I know,” Greg says. “I didn’t want to make things harder for you.”

Dan’s shaking his head, turning to face Greg again, his eyes burning intensely hazel. “I think I was waiting for you. I think. I can’t promise I'll get any better at this. I can’t promise that I’ll trust you, or myself. But I want to.”

Greg freezes. The apartment has been pleasantly toasty, but suddenly, he feels cold everywhere but where they’re touching. 

“You can’t be serious,” he says, even though Dan looks dead serious, and his grip hasn’t loosened, not even for a second. “Dan.”

“You got divorced today,” Dan says, and he’s starting to smile, small, but growing wider by the second. “You could’ve gone anywhere, but you came here, to see me. To Boston, in the middle of the winter.” 

“March is the beginning of spring in some places,” Greg says, and then, “Dan,” because he can’t help it.

Dan talks over him. “I can think of at least ten people off the top of my head who’re probably going to cash in some long-standing bets if we can actually make this work, and I think we deserve some of that money, don’t you? Think of the interest.”

“Dan!” Greg says, hope and frustration warring against his chest. “Do you even like men?” 

“I like you,” Dan says honestly. He really does lean close this time. “Can I?” 

Greg kisses him before he can say anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the usual subjects, who love me enough to keep editing my stuff, and also patiently listening while I whine about the stories in my head. 
> 
> Titled at the last minute by a lyric in "Body Like A Back Road" by Sam Hunt, because sometimes a little country goes a long way.


End file.
